


You Left a Length of Rope

by LiamGoes_0utside



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiamGoes_0utside/pseuds/LiamGoes_0utside
Summary: Dean's thoughts on freedom, family, and loss in the weeks after defeating Chuck, and losing Cas. Sam wants Dean to talk about it because he's Sam. He doesn't understand, never really has, that some things just don't have words.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	You Left a Length of Rope

**Author's Note:**

> So, I usually write poetry, not fanfiction. This is my first time posting, but I just needed to do something to make this ending make some sense in my head. This is Dean's perspective leading up to and including the finale, a sort of internal monologue that tracks his thoughts leading up to his death. This is sad and angsty, so sorry in advance!

Living with your back to the wall is an art form I perfected when I was knee-high and wild, and still young enough to want a little softness. I learned fast not to ask for it. I didn’t need more of that flavor of disappointment, didn’t need the way that loss stung.

My solution was to _give_ and damn it, I gave as much as I could. I gave until my hands were sore with it, but the sound of “not enough” still rings in my ears on the bad days. I still have the stiff feeling of blood on my hands, the weight of bodies in my arms, and the smell of sulfur in my nose and throat when the nightmares come. Some ghosts you just can’t salt and burn.

I used to laugh at my brother for praying, wondering what kind of desperation could bring a man like that to his knees. But I hoped (when I could keep it a secret) when I knew no one was watching, that some absent God would listen. If there was anyone who deserved it, he was right there. Wide-eyed and hopeful in a way I never got to be. His prayers made me recall the night I dragged him back into this life, out of the pocket of happiness he had carved for himself with his bare hands, and I sometimes wished some big dumb hunter would kick down my door and do to me what I do to all the other monsters. But then, Sammy would smile at me, and I couldn’t imagine leaving him with this mess I built for him.

I see the way he’s settled into this now. The way he’s building and weaving and creating his own kind of normal. I see how he and Eileen have built something happy and gentle on the edge of insanity, and it makes me smile for the first time in weeks, but there’s a sadness there that I don’t have the courage to name. An absence in my chest cavity that flutters like wings every time he touches her hand, and I have to turn away.

Sometimes (all the time) when I can’t sleep, I think about the first night that we met. The night I stabbed you in the heart, and you tried to tell me I was worthy of being saved. I hated you then. The way you stared me right in the face and told me what I knew could never be true. And when I think about it now, I can’t actually remember when I stopped hating you every time you tried to make me understand. I never believed you, but at some point, I resigned myself to hearing it. When you told me I was different. When you said we were making it up as we went. When you said you’d go with me. When you kept saying it. I never understood, but I let it happen, and I began to need you in ways I didn’t know how to say.

The first time I prayed to you, really prayed, it felt a little like safety and a lot like defeat. I recalled all the times I laughed at my little brother, whole body railing against the urge to beg. And I remember every time you ever answered me, rebellious and beautiful, and I think of how I can’t reach you now and I hate you all over again.

Sam wants to talk about the fact that you’re gone. He wants to mourn and remember and grieve. It feels like chewing on broken glass every time he says your name, and I’m sure he hasn’t missed me changing the subject every time. Because I _hate_ you. Because I couldn’t hate you if I tried, and it’s burning away at something in my chest. And of course, I regret not saying anything back, but it was never supposed to be a damn goodbye!

You said you loved me, and it was a goodbye instead of a promise, and I want to hate you for it so bad that there are nights when I can’t breathe for praying to you, you ass! But I can’t tell Sam that. He’s free, really free, so I force painful smiles to preserve his happiness while I think about all the ways I could get out of this godforsaken life that took away my one chance at peace. I wouldn’t be the first hunter to walk away after losing something that big.

I think I’m dying. I’m definitely dying. Sam is crying and so am I, and I think a little about peace as everything around my beautiful baby brother starts to blur and fade. In particular, I think about your eyes, and the tilt of your head, and the heat of you sitting beside me in the car as we drove away from the first end of the world. You asked which I would rather have, peace or freedom. You tried to tell me then that it couldn’t be both.

Peace was us, all of us together. Peace was our family. Peace was Jack’s smile when he figured something out for the first time, and Sam’s exasperated sighing when I did something immature and obviously hilarious. Peace was your hand on my shoulder in lieu of any of the words I never realized I wanted you to say. It was long drives and fights about nothing, and forgiveness, and all the ways we were always there for each other when nothing else was certain.

Freedom was what was left after the sacrifices were made, and the fires that stripped away our lives had burned themselves out. It was the time and power to do whatever we wanted, and not really wanting any of the options that were left. I don’t have the heart to say that to Sammy, who still has a shot at a life, so I work up the last of my nerve to tell him that I always knew it would end this way for me. It’s a lie, you had burned that fear out of me years ago, but I hope it helps him. I tell him I’m proud of him. It’s the truest thing I’ve ever said since I never got to tell you how loved you were.

As breathing gets harder and less important, the last thing on my mind is that I know I’ll see you where I’m going. It won’t be the real you, and I’ll know that, but I’ve been living with the ghost of your love for a while now, surviving with the scraps of something that was too big to be human…Maybe there will be some peace on the other side.


End file.
